Page 17

By Jack Joseph Smith

Presently Stavorgin Bash was twenty five years old, and he and another man named Michael O'Neill, just turned twenty six had driven a transport car from Pittsburgh to San Francisco. There was nothing remarkable about this adventure, excepting the fact that Stavrogin actually had a drivers licence however near the California expiring date, and that the journey had actually been made with a bottle count somewhere under eight fifths of vodka." Stavrogin had known O'Neill since their Goodman Inst- itute days of late nineteen sixty three in Chicago; where Bash had a lawsuit package of money aquired against the great Dandy Gib. of very slow sports car fame, while O'Neill had had a directors scholarship. For Stavrogin teenage life had been smashing up with fist and automobile. O'Neill's jolts were emotional through five sets of parents from Los Angeles to San Diego; but his head was clear and with the occasion of his original intellectual father, had been priming his way in life toward success. Walking along the Pacific Coast Highway now still in a stage when folks could driving make a mutual residential wave; Stavrogin Bash's still natural flash back mind viewed the quarrel he and Michael O'Neill had like shadow dancers engaged in on the San Francisco streets. Busted in Carson. City, and O'Neill having to send for money from Doctor O'Neill his first Dad in San Diego had to be the kindling frustration in his drying out gut. Not to mention their staying with O'Neill's friend Patrolmen Allen in

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The scan-verified page introduces Stavorgin Bash and Michael O'Neill as road-bound companions whose shared history runs through vodka, Goodman Institute, money, family fathers, and a San Francisco quarrel.

The repaired transcript clarifies the biographical pressure under the Pacific Coast Highway walk. What looks like a casual road-trip memory becomes a knot of class ambition, parental displacement, drink, and resentment that follows the men into the present scene.

Claude

A biographical bridge establishing the two leads. 'Stavorgin Bash' (25) and 'Michael O'Neill' (just 26) 'had driven / a transport car from Pittsburgh to San Francisco', the only remarkable facts being that Bash had a near-expired 'drivers licence' and that the trip was made 'with a bottle count somewhere under / eight fifths of vodka'. The page sketches their contrast: they met at 'Goodman Inst- / itute days of late nineteen sixty three in Chicago', where Bash had 'a lawsuit package of money aquired against the / great Dandy Gib' while O'Neill held 'a directors scholarship'. Stavrogin's youth was 'smashing up with fist and automobile'; O'Neill's 'jolts were emotional through five sets of parents', yet 'his head was clear' and he was 'priming / his way in life toward success'. It ends mid-anecdote, busted in 'Carson City' with O'Neill wiring 'Doctor / O'Neill his first Dad in San Diego' for money. Source spellings ('Stavorgin', 'aquired', 'Patrolmen') are preserved.